The perils of Breydon Water

THIS is Breydon Water looking suitably serene from Breydon Bridge at sunset.  But as any reader of Coot Club knows, this three or four mile stretch of inland estuary can be treacherous. The denouement of Arthur Ransome’s 1934 classic children’s book sees the hullabaloos finally run their hire crusier aground here after fog descends without warning. I mention it because Breydon Water is currently providing the Norfolk Broads Forum with its most entertaining thread in a long time. Earlier this month Sunchaser wrote:

“On Saturday 16th October  I took some friends out on the boat, our intention was to take them across Breydon to Yarmouth. My boat a Hampton Safari.
Predicted winds were 25 mph. When we first hit Breydon it seemed relatively calm, but as we started to hit open water it started to get rough. We were going with the tide and against the wind. The boat started to really go down into the water and up again, mud weight banging on the front. My decision was to turn around. When we turned around we were going against the tide and with the wind, the boat was just slidding across the top of the waves like a surf board.
My question is as these are not sea going boats, how much can they take?”

Since then it’s been open season. Forum regular Jenny Morgan basically called him a wuss “I suspect that your Hampton can take rather more than its crew can!” while Strowager in contrast warned of huge wave heights and Breydon’s “nasty moods”. Take a look yourself here. This one will run and run.

1878 and all that

IF you canoe through Norwich often enough you get used to small plaques high above the water line. Invariably they mark the flood level from the summer day in August 1912 when Norwich was hit by its famous flood. Six and a half inches of rain fell in just 12 hours. But that’s not the case with this plaque. This one near the site of the old Bullards brewery on Westwick Street harks back to November 1878, the date of yet another deluge and one I had never heard of. Today’s EDP contains the answer. Or rather the supplement celebrating 140 years of the newspaper contains the answer in the shape of a full report from that very day, together with a dramatic photo of the River Wensum flooded over fields which would later become home to Norwich City. There’s loads of great detail, with the “ferry-houses” of  Horning, Surlingham, Cantley and Coldham Hall all reported to be several feet under water. But it’s Norwich, and in particular what the paper calls North Heigham, where the combination of high tide, heavy flow and heavy rain wreaked particular havoc.

“Before the evening had far advanced the usually insignificant stream of 26 feet wide had swollen into a stream which was more than a mile across it. On the one hand it had poured its waters up the densely populated courts and alleys in St Martin’s at Oak and St Miles, and on the other hand it had converted Heigham Street and Causeway into a deep river and spread its waters up the various streets which ran into them. The thousands of people who dwell in these neighbourhoods seemed to be paralysed, for they were powerless to save their homes….”

In fact reading the whole supplement you are struck by how many of Norfolk’s big stories were weather-related. Two inland floods, the coastal floods of 1953 and the Great Storm of 1987. Let’s hope the  next one is still a long way off.

Last night at the East Anglian Book Awards

IT’S BLATANT self-promotion time. Last night my Wherryman’s Way book won the travel and guidebooks category at the EDP/Jarrolds Book Awards in Norwich. It was a good evening. The highlight, undoubtedly, was Louis de Bernieres reading a story in verse called “A Walberswick Goodnight Story”. As Keiron Pym says in today’s EDP, we were all held absolutely spellbound. This love of books was infectious. By the end of the evening I owned four of the shortlisted/winning books. The Medieval Churches of the City of Norwich you just have to have on your shelves and the overall winner The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson shows every sign of being  unputdownable as a novel. The other two are perhaps less-heralded. But in the Poetry section I can really recommend Yes by Caroline Gilfillan and Gedney Drove End by Cameron Self. I bought Yes today at Jarrolds. You can buy Gedney via Cameron’s Literary Norfolk website. It’s probably 20 years since I last bought collections of poetry. But then that’s what happens when Mr de B comes to town. 
* Full story in EDP http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/east_anglian_books_celebrated_at_our_awards_1_686869

Canoeing the Yare – Harford Bridges to Eaton

THREE horse power this afternoon on the River Yare. Remember two weeks ago I did the stretch from Lakenham up to Harford Bridges? Today I carried on upstream on yet another gorgeous October afternoon. Once again you’re playing hide and seek with the railway track which continues to cross and re-cross the river across Marston Marsh. The big problem this week was Keswick Mill. There’s not an obvious portage point (Portage is the posh word for having to take the canoe out of the water to avoid an obstacle) and I suspect there was a bit of inadvertent trespass when I went back in further up. After that, it opens up a little on the run up to Eaton with Eaton church providing a great focal point for the photos.

I had to pull out just a few yards downstream of the Eaton-Cringleford bridge as the river became too shallow. On the way back I took another channel which skirts the back of some of Eaton’s posher houses with rolling lawns backing onto the river. And back to the car in time for Final Score, can’t be bad.

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But do they show submerged stakes?

REMEMBER Hamilton’s Navigations? The indispensable guide to the Broads for all boat owners? It ran for 34 editions between 1935 and 2001. In between local info and historical titbits, it helped you discover where it was safe to moor. You cross-referenced between sections of a pull-out map and notes in the book to discover “Reeds up to within 150 yds of Surlingham Ferry Inn, where there are submerged stakes and therefore bad moorings.”

(That’s a quote from the fifteenth edition – pictured - priced seven shillings and sixpence, just so you know.) Anyway the Broads Authority might just have unveiled the 21st century equivalent. Click on Boating and then hydrographical survey from their website and you get offered the entire sweep of the Yare from Norwich down to the Berney Arms, reach by reach. The section I’ve cut and pasted above shows the river looping past Surlingham and Brundall. Quite apart from their usefulness for boatowners, I think the maps also look good, artistic even, in their own right. What would Claud Hamilton would make of them I wonder?

Andrew Marr on bloggers

“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting…’

BBC legend Andrew Marr at the Cheltenham Literature Festival

Damn, rumbled at last…..

Half pint, half mended

REMEMBER this little beauty from Rockland Dyke in the Spring? She’s Half Pint, the boat with the impossibly heavy cabin made from decking. We all laughed and said she’d sink. And then she sank and we all laughed. Well it looks as if Half Pint is about to be reborn. The new owner – at least I think it’s a new owner – posts as Half Pint on the Norfolk Broads forum. He’s ditched the decking, made a new driver’s seat and hopes to be on the water by November. Whether any of us will actually recognise her without that, err, distinctive, cabin is another issue altogether.

* Thanks to Tony P for his help with this one.

The Southern Bypass – by canoe

THE MORE you look, the more you realise what a great city Norwich is for canoeing. While the websites might point you to the Broads or North Norfolk, I think the young Yare has got an awful lot going for it, especially on a stunningly beautiful October morning. I started at Lakenham, making use of a gap between houses on Old Lakenham Hall Drive. Heading upstream against a strong-ish current, the houses soon disappear on your right while the railway looms on the left. But in between is an undeclared nature reserve, full – this morning at least – of heron, cormorants, long tailed tits, jays and one particularly blue kingfisher. Later the rooftops reappear and you realise what great views the council houses of Theobald Road have across this valley. You then have to do a canoe version of the limbo dance to get under a very low railway bridge before shooting the spectacularly high Lakenham viaduct (pictured).

One of the many joys of canoeing is that unique “Access all Areas” feel. And from the viaduct onwards you are in country accessible to no-one but the landowners. Just me and two swans shared the stretch down to Harford Bridges, although two marsh harriers provided aerial support. Next time I’ll go in at Harford and try to make it to Cringleford. And then perhaps Cringleford up as far as Colney. For a river that essentially follows Norwich’s southern bypass, it’s amazingly serene.

The official Wherryman’s Way sock ..apparently

I’M LEFT scratching my head after looking up my Wherryman’s Way book on Amazon. Apparently customers who bought it, also bought Bill Bryson’s “An informal history of private life”, the latest biography of the Queen Mum and a pair of “Bridgedale endurance trekker men’s socks”, yours for roughly a tenner. What can it all mean and should they be selling them in Jarrolds?

Is it the end for The Swan?

THE LODDON Swan is likely to be closed until at least Christmas, according to its owners Enterprise Inns. The pub closed its doors in a hurry two weeks ago and now its entire future seems in doubt. When I’ve approached pub companies after other closures, they have always stressed how keen they are to get new people in quickly. Not so on this occasion. Enterprise Inns’ message today was that The Swan won’t be re-opening any time soon and “all options are still open”. One of those options presumably, would be selling this old coaching inn off for housing. So why here and why now? Well the final straw seems to have been a burglary a few days or weeks before the pub shut its doors. The pub was being managed by London Taverns. Their man tells me thousands of pounds were stolen. That prompted LT to hand it back to Enterprise Inns …And that’s prompted Enterprise Inns to start wondering what’s best for the future.

Brundall boys go fishing

SIX likely lads perched on the ferry jetty at Brundall sometime early in the twentieth century. …Just one of hundreds of photos on the Brundall Archive, a website I’ve only just come across. Across the other side of the river lies Coldham Hall at Surlingham; you can just make out one of the boatsheds owned by the pub on the extreme left of the picture. Anyone wanting the ferry simply had to ring the bell. Thanks to Gerry for permission to use the shot. Lots more great pictures here.

The YNR: the Wherryman’s Way for sailors

HERE’S the photographic proof of what a spectacle the Yare Navigation Race is. Not taken by me I hasten to add, my compact just doesn’t get this clarity or this crispness. No, this is one of 97 taken by Sue Hines and showing on her flickr site. She uses a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. The next two show Billy Bluelight and Anne both setting off from Coldham Hall. Thanks Sue for allowing me to show them here.

 

Remembering Broad + High

ON the crest of a small hill between Whitlingham and Bramerton, the Wherryman’s Way passes a field which overlooks Kirby Marshes. It’s a good part of the walk; you finally feel as if you’ve left Norwich behind and you’re striking out across the Yare Valley. Were you to trespass across that field, you would find a plaque in memory of four American airmen. They lost their lives when a Liberator bomber named Broad + High crash-landed there on August 18th 1944. That much I knew. That much is in my book. More importantly that much is formally remembered in a plaque (pictured) within St Andrew’s Church, Kirby Bedon.

What I didn’t know until I opened today’s EDP, was how the villagers had kept in touch with some of the airmen who survived. The pilot Roger Leister, writes Steve Snelling, had returned to Kirby many times, building a strong bond of friendship with the “Kirby Kids” who remembered that awful day. Steve has written a very moving article that makes clear how Mr Leister thought he was choosing a flat field, only to realise it actually included a “treacherous bank that was invisible from the air but proved a fatal barrier for the battle-ravaged and flak-ruptured Liberator”.

Mr Leister, from Pennsylvania, died last year. Tomorrow his ashes will be scattered over that same field after a service of dedication at St Andrew’s at 11am. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be trespassing in that direction again.

* Read the full story by turning to pages 30 and 31 here.

YNR 2010: What happens when the wind drops

A QUIET pint with Mrs Wherryman at Coldham Hall on Saturday evening had me in a historical mood. The car park was packed but the pub was deserted. They’d all set sail several hours earlier and had yet to return. Because it was the day of the Yare Navigation Race, the one day of the year when sail really does dominate and anyone with an inboard or an outboard sticks to their moorings. Every year dozens of river cruiser class boats race from Coldham Hall to Breydon Water and back. “"And back” being the tricky bit this time around.  At 6.30 only one crew had made it home – pictured above. Apparently the wind had dropped suddenly, leaving dozens of boats limping home slowly. The pub looked well prepared. Lots of staff and a big outside BBQ to complement the kitchen. They just didn’t have any guests.

And so to the historical bit. It must have been just like this in the old days. I had a vision of a gnarled old publican coming outside to sniff the wind. Would a dozen wherries come round the corner any moment or were they already getting drunk downriver at the Buckenham Ferry? Wherrymen didn’t have cars to return to, and they didn’t have mobiles either.

On Saturday we left before the rest returned. I’m sure they got there eventually and I’m sure Natalie and George somehow made sure the bangers weren’t burnt.

* There are some great pictures from the race on this Flickr set by SuPine.

The Swan-song at Loddon ?

 I’VE ALWAYS been amazed that Loddon and Chedgrave can continue to support four pubs when so many other villages have already seen their last one disappear. Well tonight, they’re down to three. A piece of paper has just gone up outside The Swan saying it’s closed “until further notice”. The landlord is in the process of moving out and the curtains are firmly shut. Historically it was the grand old coaching inn. In recent years it’s fallen on harder times. But for now the old rule remains - there’s always one Wherryman’s Way pub in crisis

Wherries and Waterways: the movie premiere

ONE for the diary in November. The Wherry Yacht Charter charity has organised a film show called “Wherries and Waterways” with footage from the excellent East Anglian Film Archive. You’ll probably know that the WYC does vital but expensive work keeping Hathor, Olive and Norada afloat. Normally they have at least one boat on tour which helps keep the flag flying and the funds flowing. This year they’ve all been under restoration, hence events like this one.

* The show takes place at the Assembly House in Norwich on Friday November 19th. Doors open at 7pm, the film begins at 7.30pm. For tickets call Pauline Simpson on 01692 630674. They’re £9 in advance and £10 on the day. Price includes interval refreshments.

Wherryman’s web milestone

WHERRYMAN’S WEB has just registered its 10,000th hit since it was set up in February 2009. The first post was about the Slaughters ..and so – by complete coincidence - was the last one. I’ll try to be more original in future. See that first effort here.

Rockland Broad: The Slaughters

 

THE SLAUGHTERS is the graphic name for the remains of 13 wherries sunk on Rockland Broad sometime in the middle of the 20th century. I’ve blogged before about how a few sodden timbers emerge at low tide if you’re in the right place at the right time in a canoe. But which one’s which and how do we know? This diagram is, I think, the only solid evidence. I’ve got this copy from Broads fan Chris Bird. He’s pretty sure that it was made in the 1950s by members of the Wherry Trust who went around the broads seeing what could be salvaged. It is very precise – even to extent of naming which boats formed which islands.

Because while some of the wherries sank, others seem to have collected enough soil above the water line to become homes for first small plants and later fairly substantial trees. They are perhaps the world’s largest plant pots with the roots of the willows forming more permanent anchors for the wherries than anything man ever established. Today as this picture makes clear they provide excellent nest sites for swans.

I love the Slaughters. Sometimes I think there might be a case for excavating and preserving them; turning them into a floating, boardwalking museum. But most of the time I just enjoy their mysterious isolation. There’s plenty of history tied up above and below the surface of Rockland Broad. But seeing less means you can imagine more.

Can anyone remember Pull’s last ferryman?

THIS is one of the most photographed scenes in Norwich – Pull’s Ferry on the River Wensum in Norwich. It is named after John Pull who kept the ferry and adjoining pub for much of the first half of the 19th century. The building of course goes back a lot longer. It is – in Norwich historian Frank Meeres’s words the “medieval water gate of Cathedral Close”. That’s a reminder that the river use to double up as city wall. So when there was a canal up to the cathedral, it had to protected with a gate. But how long did that ferry last I wonder? Thorpe Hamlet’s historian says it stopped after Norwich City moved from The Nest to Carrow Road in the mid-1930s. Meeres says 1943 and elsewhere I’ve read of even later dates. Even if it was 1935, that leaves it in living memory – just. So can anyone help me find an old Norwich bor or gal who might just remember the last ferryman? We’re pretty sure he was Cecil Mollett who had five daughters, Dorothy, Eileen, Betty, Gladys and Marjorie. His wife was Lily and Dorothy married Herbet “Joe” Henning. Email me at steveanddebbie.silk@virgin.net if you can help. Until I find that precious eye-witness we’ll have to make do with author R H Mottram’s memories of the 1890s:

“It was one of the treats of my childhood,” he wrote “to be taken across the deep, slow-flowing water, by the laconic old ferryman who ‘quanted’ Norfolk-fashion with a long pole, he did not row. And when landed safely on the other side, what fun to sit on the grass of the tow-path of those days and watch the slow but capacious wherries go gliding past.”

Cantley’s slipway to success

IT’S the other side of the river from the Wherryman’s Way, but Yare fans might still be interested in a bash at Cantley later this month. The authorities have chosen the Yare Navigation Race day to unveil hundreds of thousands of pounds of new facilities and prove that there’s more to Cantley than just its sugar works. More than £300,000 has been spent on everything from new moorings to that rarest of things, a new slipway. The village will also now have a  £35,000 floating pontoon, new picnic tables, seating on the village green and new trees. Robert Beadle, Chairman of the Parish Council, is quoted as saying: "For many years we have sat by the river with no access to it. But at last we have a beautiful and safe area where people can sit and picnic by the river, fish and launch their boats. I am sure it will give many years of pleasure and will be a facility that the residents of Cantley can be proud of." The new facilities will be opened at 11am on Saturday 18 September. Among the other attractions on the day will be bands, a folk group singing sea shanties, clog dancing, pupils from Cantley School dressed as pirates and a performance by the St Edmunds Youth Orchestra from Acle outside the Reedcutter Public House.

* Full Broads Authority press release here.